Archives For green

In the United States, sustainable progress most often takes the form of ways to engineer a more efficient version of the status quo. Products that allow for a reduction in net resource use while allowing customers to live the same way are seen as a win/win. To be fair, the small advances we can take through greener product choices are a first step and certainly better than nothing, even if course-altering impacts towards a sustainable culture will require the underlying lifestyle to evolve. If greener consumerism is one of the paths that Americans are responding to then the products need to do more than provide a promise for eventual savings. The more that people can connect choices of product usage to resource repercussions in real time, the better the chance that lifestyles can alter to maximize the use of more efficient products. Continue Reading…

Most architects care to believe that people will recognize a well-designed space when they see it and that the nuances of a successful design process will be ascribed value in the eyes of potential occupants. However, what seems to be increasingly often, there are extra features and accoutrements that are added to the package outside of the inherent quality of the living space in order to sweeten the deal for payors and entice them to cough up that little extra something. These property amenities are emerging as an interesting barometer for how our culture is ascribing value.

But of all of the glitzy add-ons to high-end real estate, how many of them are really adding that much when it comes to quality of life? How many of them are simply just wasteful pieces of program included for no other reason than an expectation that they represent an image of exclusivity– regardless of whether or not they are used once the project is actually occupied? Continue Reading…

This was the question posed to a panel at the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2014. Comprised of educators, scholars and students, the group floated ideas for how sustainability cannot only gain exposure to students in their educational career, but ingrain its importance at an earlier age to make subsequent generations better equipped to deal with the environmental and societal challenges we face. Continue Reading…

This forum continues to vet the definition of sustainability and how it differs from public perception inside and outside of the United States. For most of us, I would argue that our understanding of its underlying concept and its resulting associations is a stark divergence from its true meaning. This discrepancy is at least partly to blame for our lethargic rate of progress on environmental issues. At least part of the blame rests on the fact that we live in a age where circulating information is incredibly easy, even the wrong information. Continue Reading…

New York Resource Neutral

Associated Press – October 17th, 2050 – New York, NY

Yesterday afternoon, New York City’s administrators reported that the city has reached its goal of resource neutrality. This is a culmination of a multi-decade effort marred by numerous setbacks, including the Hurricane Katie in 2017 and Superstorm Heather in 2032. With less than two months before the end of the year deadline New York joins several international urban centers in completing the challenge set forth during the 2016 Sochi Accord. The Accord countered the once widely accepted practice of structuring cities as dense sinks of resources, requiring outlying rural and suburban land to survive. Continue Reading…

The most recent set of flashy renderings of Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino, California make the goals of the building unmistakably clear. With a design from Norman Foster, the tech company’s mothership is depicted as a pristine white ring nestled in a large site strewn with greenery. When we look at the images that include different combinations of white, glass and foliage it is hard not to say “of course.” Of course this is Apple’s new corporate club house. The design is sleek and detailed for modern simplicity. Everything about the building’s appearance resonates with an image of next generation technology. It is kind of like a big iPhone. I would say that the new campus is the perfect manifestation of Apple’s entire business in almost every way, save for one thing: it is trying to be green. This new headquarters is making some strides in its attempts to be more environmentally friendly, but some key aspects still raise the question of whether it is really all that sustainable. Continue Reading…

I spend some time highlighting aspects of sustainability that are passed over because they represent truths that we don’t want to accept. People don’t want to hear that we are car-dependent. People don’t really like to hear that their purchasing power matters so every purchase they have counts towards shifting a marketplace. No one looks forward to being told that he is part of the “environmental problem.” However, when it comes to the discussion of sustainability, even stalwart climate hawks have to saddle up with an inconvenient truth of their own. Greens are also part of the problem. Naturally I include myself in this group, so the title is really “We Are Hypocrits.” It hurts a bit, but it’s true. Continue Reading…

Our migration to more sustainable buildings is an evolving process that requires a consistent combination of goals, results and critiques. Without any one of these components, we run the risk of stagnation and dampening our progress towards more ecological responsibility in our buildings. However, it is important that the level of effort and investigation put into criticism is commensurate with the amount contributed to the process of designing the results in the first place. When sustainability is critiqued (and it should be) it has to be weighed as a series of components and relationships rather than being boiled-down into one or two metrics to make its retention more palatable.

Sam Roudman’s recent New Republic article condemning Bank of America’s Tower at One Bryant Park that sped through the blogosphere is indicative of one of the largest hurdles that our culture faces for sustainability: the propensity we have to shrink its definition down to fit into sound bites and online rants at the expense of removing large portions of its meaning and resulting importance. Not only does this diminish the progress we have made, but it perpetuates an inaccurate idea of what we are striving for in the first place.

Given our propensity for streamlining information paired with our dangerous addiction to hype, we have a tendency to pull things out of context to weigh them each as isolated ideas. This is just as true with sustainability as it is with everything else. Merits and shortcomings are all too often examined on one specific gadget, product or system, but everything (especially sustainability) is really a system of systems. More often than not, the real opportunities for progress come with linking individual solutions together. A great example is renewable energy and electric cars. Continue Reading…

In its basic definition, efficiency relates to a given amount of energy or effort it takes to accomplish a certain task relative to the least possible amount. It is true that a more efficient system/solution/product will use less energy than a less efficient counterpart, but in order to gauge its place within the topic of sustainability we have to ground the term and its use in realistic conditions. What we end up with is that “efficiency” is a much more incomplete thought that most people treat it. As an idea, it is a component of a direction more than a solution. Continue Reading…